John Rockefeller: i thank him for yielding me the floor, and at this point i would yield the floor. mr. rockefeller: i thank the good senator from maryland for his remarks. mr. president, i'd just like to -- and i'm sure that as i call her my vice chair, senator hutchison, will have some

John Rockefeller: remarks she wants to make. simply to catch us up to where we are, this is the federal aviation bill, and it's been deemed to be only the federal aviation bill, which is good because that means extraneous amendments aren't germane. and we're trying to work our way through this aviation policy issue business, which actually

John Rockefeller: is turning out so far to be quite smooth. people have come and it's done in a very bipartisan fashion that's the way senator hutchison and i work always. and it's the way the committee, frankly, works. it's one of the reasons we put out more nominations and probably more legislation than any other committee. we have a number of pending amendments that i know my

John Rockefeller: colleagues also have others. some will come to the floor this afternoon to get into the queue and speak on those amendments. we're making very good progress in resolving some of the pending amendments. and others, i believe, will require votes. if we can do something without a vote, that's great. if we have to have a vote,

John Rockefeller: that's also fine. in addition, senator hutchison and i continue to work to resolve the issue of slots at the national airport is. i want to thank all of our colleagues for engaging in a constructive conversation on this very difficult issue. it's been very, very heartening that people seem to understand

John Rockefeller: that if we can't work out this issue, the whole bill goes down and 11 million jobs and over $1 trillion of the economy is at risk. we played with fire for this now for 15 -- 17 consecutive extensions of the bill. a horrible way to do business, to send out a three-year

John Rockefeller: contract for building an airport runway. it's just -- it's awful, but we haven't faced up to this bill. senator hutchison and i are doing that. i expect we'll be on the bill this week, probably hope to finish it the following week. i really believe that we can do that. but then again, i'm not sure.

John Rockefeller: it's how the senate wants to work its will. again, i would urge my colleagues to come and speak with senator hutchison and myself if they have amendments that they would like to offer. that's what we're here for. i thank the presiding and --